[FRIAM] Fwd: Fwd: Back to the Future with Smalltalk – Hacker Noon

Wed May 23 09:30:30 EDT 2018

Besides the obvious things, like how easy it is to find developers, one’s current level of fluency, or how good the ecosystem of tools is around a language, I’d point to these properties as being important.

1) Is it strongly typed?

Do components connect together in such a way that one can have confidence the composition is correct just by virtue of compiling them?
Or do you have to run the code to find this out?   Smalltalk does not have this property.
Anyone that has had a long workflow fail because of a typo that would have been caught in a well-typed program can appreciate this one.
Other people are deluded or have an agenda.  ☺

2) Does it have type inference?

Given an expression, can its type – say symbols bound to the expression -- be constrained just from analysis?    Or does the code have to run?
Smalltalk relies on dynamic typing (violating #1) and can’t do this.

3) Is it purely functional?

Can variables be mutated?  Do functions act like mathematical functions?
Smalltalk is not purely functional.

4) Does it have closures?

Can contextual (e.g. read/only) objects be treated than index variables without changing the parameterization of functions?
`Blocks’ in Smalltalk.

5) Is it declarative?

Does the language simply try to reflect what a microprocessor does (C), or does it add other semantics like search (not as a library, but natively).
Does it insist the programmer must describe how to do everything rather than focus on what to do?
Does the language have a concept like satisfaction of a goal?  Smalltalk, not really.

6) Is it homoiconic?

Can code construct code?  (Without using text production and re-parsing.)
Smalltalk is not.

Overall, Smalltalk is an old language and computer science has progressed since then.

Marcus

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Merle Lefkoff <merlelefkoff at gmail.com>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Date: Wednesday, May 23, 2018 at 5:27 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] Fwd: Fwd: Back to the Future with Smalltalk – Hacker Noon

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Adam Lefkoff <adam at lefkoff.com<mailto:adam at lefkoff.com>>
Date: Wed, May 23, 2018 at 2:18 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: [FRIAM] Back to the Future with Smalltalk – Hacker Noon
To: Merle Lefkoff <merlelefkoff at gmail.com<mailto:merlelefkoff at gmail.com>>

Smalltalk is no better or worse than any other programming language. Anyone saying otherwise has an underlying agenda...
On 5/22/2018 2:01 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
Shalom Adam.  Is this interesting?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alfredo Covaleda Vélez <alfredo at covaleda.co<mailto:alfredo at covaleda.co>>
Date: Tue, May 22, 2018 at 5:53 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Back to the Future with Smalltalk – Hacker Noon
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>

Gracias

Esto quizá podría resultarles interesante.   Squeak is an open-source Smalltalk programming system.

http://squeak.org/

Regards

On Mon, May 21, 2018 at 12:52 PM, Gary Schiltz <gary at naturesvisualarts.com<mailto:gary at naturesvisualarts.com>> wrote:
I read that I while back. I like Smalltalk too, but I'm not holding my breath.

On Mon, May 21, 2018 at 12:42 PM, Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net<mailto:owen at backspaces.net>> wrote:
 This will make Dave West happy:

https://hackernoon.com/back-to-the-future-with-smalltalk-57c68fab583a

    -- Owen

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--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org<http://emergentdiplomacy.org>
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
merlelefkoff at gmail.com<mailto:merlelefoff at gmail.com>
mobile:  (303) 859-5609
skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
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